Plenty of questions, few answers surface about early Windows 8 sales

Windows 8 could be selling horribly, it could be selling well. Redmond, send numbers.

Windows 8's sales are worse than Windows 7's were at the same time in its lifecycle—unless they're higher. They're also apparently worse than internal Microsoft estimates. But what those estimates are is anyone's guess. Truth is, we don't really know and we won't for some time. But combine the new operating system with the continuing conjecture over former Windows Division president Steven Sinofsky's departure, and you've got some great headlines.

The first mutterings about poor sales came in the aftermath of Sinofsky's demise, with incredulity that he'd be let go so soon after Windows 8's launch unless sales were catastrophic. Bad sales are plausible, too, after reviews of Windows 8 were decidedly mixed. The operating system, at best, seemed deeply polarizing.

Surprisingly, the first talk of sales numbers was positive: the Register reported the results in Europe were, according to channel analyst Context, actually quite good. Sales in the two weeks up to and including the October 26 launch of Windows 8 were up 7.8 percent year-on-year, and about a quarter of these machines shipped with Windows 8. Windows 7 was only installed on 17.1 percent of machines sold in the equivalent time period around its launch. Context also noted that in spite of fears to the contrary, there wasn't a glut of unsold Windows 7 inventory clogging the channel. In a sluggish European computer market still suffering the effects of the global downturn, that's a pretty healthy performance.

A few days later, the news wasn't so good. Microsoft-watcher Paul Thurrott wrote that a single source inside the company said Windows 8 PC sales were "well below" internal projections. The software maker apparently blamed the slow start on lackluster offerings from PC OEMs.

Today, AllThingsD offered confirmation of sorts to Thurrott's source. According to market research firm NPD, the US market does have a problem with stale Windows 7 inventory. Windows 8 is growing each week as these old machines are flushed from the channel. But Windows 7, in contrast, had no comparable problem with Windows Vista inventory. The result? Windows 7 had a "stronger launch," but Windows 8 has a "faster ramp."

Microsoft has announced no sales figures. But Redmond did say that over the first three days of retail availability the company sold 4 million upgrade licenses and the operating system was selling faster than Windows 7. While the time scales may be different—a few days versus a few weeks—this would appear to undermine NPD's claim that Windows 8's launch was weaker than Windows 7's.

Even Thurrott's source gives no real insight into sales figures. Windows 8 could have matched or beaten Windows 7, but still fallen short of Microsoft's own projections if those projections were high enough. At its earnings call in October, the company pointedly refused to give investors any guidance on its expectations of the Windows division's revenue even when directly asked.

If the company does have projections, and it surely must, it doesn't yet have enough confidence in them to issue guidance based on them. If we're cheeky, we might, however, be able to speculate a little from its other predictions—in particular the relationship between the Microsoft Business Division's Office revenue, the PC market as a whole, and Windows revenue.

Microsoft splits Office revenue into two parts. There's multiyear revenue, from volume licensing subscriptions, and there's transactional revenue, from one-off perpetual sales such as the various editions bought at retail or pre-installed on PCs. In general, Microsoft expects transactional Office revenue to reflect the performance of the overall PC market, albeit at a slightly lower level. We can see how this would make sense: a growth in sales of consumer and small business PCs will cause a corresponding growth in sales of consumer and small business versions of Office (the ones that tend to be transactional rather than subscription).

Windows revenue, particularly transactional Windows revenue, is similarly driven by the overall health and behavior of the PC market. This tends to follow in lockstep for reasons that should be obvious.

For the three months of October, November, and December 2012, Microsoft expects transactional Office revenue to grow by the low single digits. From this we could infer PC market growth of perhaps mid-to-high single digits, and hence Windows revenue growth of the same amount.

Although only spanning two weeks, the European numbers from Context are in line with this inference. The numbers from the US may be worse—given the contradiction between Steve Ballmer's claims and NPD's, it's difficult to draw any coherent picture. But this inferiority may be due not to poor sales per se, but delays in shifting Windows 7 merchandise. With NPD noting the old inventory is being cleared and Windows 8 is ramping up, the US could soon match Europe's results.

Absent an explicit statement on sales figures from Microsoft, the true impact of Windows 8 on the PC market and Microsoft's own finances won't become apparent until January. Then, we'll get real numbers for this quarter's performance.

Nonetheless, it's far too early to write off the operating system yet. The evidence, such as it exists right now, is nowhere near strong enough to dismiss Windows 8 as a catastrophe. Windows 8 may still bomb on the market and its success certainly won't be straightforward or obvious given the nature of the changes that it makes. But its failure is by no means a foregone conclusion either—and it might just surprise the critics in the end.

If indeed Windows 8 is selling better than expected, particularly the upgrade SKU's, it's not unexpected- MS is having resellers sell the software at a $130-off markdown for the "Pro" version. Speaking for myself, if I had to pay just shy of $200 for what would be considered in many regards a downgrade from Windows 7 Ultimate, I'd never do it- skip the cycle like I did with ME and Vista. But at the currently discounted $69-and-change price, the internal improvements look more appealing, and I'm more willing to take the chance. If I didn't like it, I wouldn't be out a whole lot, and MS gets to put another notch in their belt either way.

As it happens, Windows 8 has so far proved livable, and the practical (if not real) increase in performance doing every-day things was worth the inconvenience of loosing Media Center, and having to put up with a schizophrenic UI.

I can't imagine the sales figures will be glowing.I'm seriously considering going back to W7 because I find the start screen and a few other changes so grating. And there are no other real benefits to running 8.

To put that in context, I've run, professionally, not just at home, every version of Windows since 3.1, including the NT based OS betas (up to Vista) and Win CE and Embedded NT, (but not Vista). And I've never rolled back to a previous version, or even considered really. This is the first time, which for me makes it the worst release yet.

Working in the software industry, I've not yet heard anybody in the real world say anything positive about it. And it's different to the Vista problem. Vista had performance and compatibility issues. That's the kind of stuff people avoid. But 8 is fast and compatible.

I just can't see how the sales are going to be good. The large number of XP uses will migrate to 7 and stay there for years.

Unless Microsoft release an 8.1 that frees the interface up a bit. Is that going to happen with Julie Larsen? I doubt it.

Honestly, I tried Windows 8, and it wasn't too bad until I realised that the instance of (say) Chrome that you run via the Start screen is not the same as the instance of Chrome you start from the Desktop screen. This may be something that was obvious to everyone but me, I dunno . But for someone who would probably switch between the Start screen and the Desktop fairly often, like me, it's a bit of a deal breaker.

New versions of Windows have traditionally not been the kind of product that did spectacular sales on the day the new version was released. There are really two questions about Windows 8, neither of which will be answered until the holiday season is totaled up. One is whether the excitement about Windows 8 can rescue the PC market this holiday season. The other is whether Windows 8 will bring any significant phone and tablet sales for Microsoft this holiday season. It would be a big victory for them if Microsoft was getting 10% of the sale in either category.

Honestly, I tried Windows 8, and it wasn't too bad until I realised that the instance of (say) Chrome that you run via the Start screen is not the same as the instance of Chrome you start from the Desktop screen. This may be something that was obvious to everyone but me, I dunno . But for someone who would probably switch between the Start screen and the Desktop fairly often, like me, it's a bit of a deal breaker.

Yeah, this is the biggest problem with Windows 8, I think. Most of the UI changes people can adapt to, but I think it's legitimately confusing which apps are Metro and which are Desktop.

For example, you can download both Metro and Desktop versions of Evernote. You can have both start tiles right next to each other. It's not at all obvious which one is Metro or Desktop.

The way Chrome behaves right now I'm pretty sure is not supposed to happen. A single installation of Chrome acts like both a Metro and a Desktop app, depending on whether you start it from the Start Screen or the Desktop. Most apps are definitively one or the other. (Although, now that I think about it, that might be how IE works as well. Haven't really used it enough to tell.)

Personally I upgraded because I'm a developer. As a consumer, I'd probably worry about the touch device first. I think the success of Windows 8 should be measured by how many people now have a wait and see attitude towards buying a non Apple tablet, instead of actual sales numbers. If it can slow down kindle/android sales I'd consider it a success.

I don't like ad-ware. In general, I'll pay for a version of software without ads.

If no such option exists, then I'm disinclined to use ad-ware software at all.

As a desktop user, Windows 8 feels like ad-ware. Every time I want to start a program, I have to go through a little ad about Microsoft's tablet OS so when I do buy a tablet, I'll have seen the interface a few thousand times already.

I'm not happy at having my desktop experience made worse simply to allow Microsoft to promote their tablet OS. Perhaps Windows 8 sales reflect that I'm not the only one to feel that way.

I was pretty hard on Windows 8 through the pre-release products, but I ended up buying the $15 upgrade to give the final version a try. After a few weeks of testing (which I do on a spare HDD), I swapped my Windows 7 drive back in and upgraded it to Windows 8. I'm actually liking it much more now that I have gotten used to it, and my wife has actually taken to it with the only training being "Start button is now just a blind click in the corner."

I still think some of the stock Apps could be better (no resize option for uploading photos to Skydrive), but I also don't doubt that MS will gradually improve them over time. Perhaps Windows 8 is not a necessary upgrade, like those who wanted to abandon Vista ASAP, but it's a nice OS after all. It's just that the changes are not all obvious, and there's some learning to do.

It doesn't offer me any compelling reason whatsoever to upgrade from Windows 7. Win 7 is a great OS that works perfectly for me across all my PCs/laptops, and I have no interest in playing in Microsofts mobile walled garden, so I will never buy a windows phone or tablet.

For me, there's no incentive to upgrade at all (quite a few reasons not to). But it will be interesting to see sales numbers in Jan.

It doesn't offer me any compelling reason whatsoever to upgrade from Windows 7. Win 7 is a great OS that works perfectly for me across all my PCs/laptops, and I have no interest in playing in Microsofts mobile walled garden, so I will never buy a windows phone or tablet.

For me, there's no incentive to upgrade at all (quite a few reasons not to). But it will be interesting to see sales numbers in Jan.

Win 8 has started about twice as fast as Windows 7 for me, which is strange, as I did an upgrade and not a clean install. For me, that's almost enough reason to buy it. The metro apps / start menu are somewhat strange on a laptop and I virtually ignore them.

It doesn't offer me any compelling reason whatsoever to upgrade from Windows 7. Win 7 is a great OS that works perfectly for me across all my PCs/laptops, and I have no interest in playing in Microsofts mobile walled garden, so I will never buy a windows phone or tablet.

For me, there's no incentive to upgrade at all (quite a few reasons not to). But it will be interesting to see sales numbers in Jan.

Win 8 has started about twice as fast as Windows 7 for me, which is strange, as I did an upgrade and not a clean install. For me, that's almost enough reason to buy it. The metro apps / start menu are somewhat strange on a laptop and I virtually ignore them.

I don't turn my PC on from a cold start all that often (even less with the laptops), plus having an SSD, it doesn't exactly take an eternity to boot.

Going from a 50 second boot to a 25 second boot or whatever it is (made up numbers, it honestly feels more like a 30 second boot on my PC, but I've never bothered timing it) isn't worthy of an upgrade for me.

I was impressed with fast start up/shutdown when I first got my SSD, but once the novelty wore off, I barely noticed when going back to older PC with a standard HDD.

The first few hours were a bit rough, as nothing was where I expected it to be. By the end of the day I was sort of getting a sense of it, and a week or two on It doesn't bother me.

The tough bit was relearning how to think about the OS, but once I was able to start 'getting inside its head', 8 has become much easier to use. I'm finding I tend to think of it in levels now, where common, everyday 'I just want to use it' stuff is laid out and accessed via Metro, and any 'serious' work is done by reverting to the desktop interface.

In short, I'm still settling in a bit, but it's not nearly as bad as I'd expected, and I could see myself getting to like it just fine. I haven't taken to 8 as quickly as I did 7, but it also hasn't sent me running back to 7 screaming in terror.

I think 8 will probably be just fine - it's just the adjustment period that's a little off-putting at first.

In an interview with Readwrite, Merle McIntosh, senior VP of product management for online tech retailer NewEgg's North American division, described sales of Windows 8 as "slow going," though he declined to cite actual figures.

According to McIntosh, NewEgg – one of North America's largest tech retailers, with around $2bn in annual sales – was hoping for an "explosion" of Windows 8 sales following its October 26 launch. That didn't happen, he said.

I can only hope sales suck hard core. Not because I hate Microsoft. But I want this nonsense that Microsoft is pushing that a tablet OS UI is perfectly fine for desktops and laptops, and this idea that dropping an 17 year old UI overnight is going to fly with everyone to DIE a horrible horrible death. And for them to realize that a square peg isn't going to fit in a round hole and give people the ability to choose. But mostly I want these people to stop throwing desktop and laptop users under the bus all in the name of building metro apps.

I see very little reason why anyone would upgrade to windows 8 when windows 7 works so well as it is.

The people who are going to buy windows 8 are going to buy one with a new device; specifically new device form factors. It simply does not make sense to buy a pre-existing laptop/computer with windows 8 and/or upgrade an existing device to win 8.

Windows 8 will sell via new devices. That is what people are waiting for. However, very few have been available. As of this writing, only a few true Windows 8 devices are actually available - and to very select markets only. The majority are still in pre-order or with no clear date of release. Simply put, people will not buy.

I waited and waited and I only bought a windows 8 devices because I needed a new laptop badly. I ended up with an Acer Iconia W700 because it was the only one available, even then, in limited quantities. These devices are only now becoming available, in limited supply and in limited markets.

That said, I am surprised how high quality the Acer Iconia is. It's also very fast and relatively cheap. As a designer, I have now used it as my main work computer for the last week and after the first day, have learned how to use it to best suit my needs. I support 4 countries in the scope of my work so the demands on my machine are very high and the Iconia has performed wonderfully as a desktop in the office, a tablet for presentations and a tablet for home use. Though it is painful to be working on such a small screen - but portability was my main consideration (and running photoshop & adobe suite/MS office).

Windows 8 is also surprisingly well built and once you figure it out, it is easy to get things done. The biggest hurdle is learning how to use the new multitasking if you transition a lot between not-metro and the desktop. If I'm doing pure work, I have everything pinned to my taskbar and my email client open as a left side bar. Works great.

like the previous poster said, I think most sales were for the "bug" that let people buy upgrades for $15 legit or not. I bought a preorder deal from amazon, and an upgrade for my laptop that was ~8 mo old from the microsoft upgrade site. I just can't switch.

I'm waiting for an sp1 that lets you bypass start menu or for the person working on windows start from explorer code to become more developed. It didn't work with some of my war-driving apps, which I was kinda interested at the time of release. I just did not see a reason to upgrade yet, except for the improved task manager and file transfer menus. I'm also already on a SSD so it wasn't a big deal about start up times. My motherboard bios start up is abysmal so left a lot to be wanted.

Had occasion to install Microsoft's latest OS offering today. A few niggles:

1. The version available everywhere is upgrade only. This is not advertised on the outside of the box, and constitutes what I believe to be extremely deceptive packaging.

2. The so-called "OEM" version is not available at Microsoft stores. This is almost unbelievably stupid, and the poor drones at the store looked like they had been asked this question thousands of times, and could not themselves believe how stupid it was. I had to suffer through a Fry's run to get the version I needed.

3. The much-touted "Metro" interface is an extremely shallow facade, and to actually do anything with the OS, you're back squarely in thousands-of-tiny-icons land with the zero-improvements-whatsoever awful-in-every-way Control Panel that has remained essentially unchanged for over a decade. Ugh.

4. The OS ships with a ridiculously aggressive "sleep" regime that will actually put your machine to sleep while it is downloading updates for the OS. Yes, this is exactly as stupid and moronic as it sounds.

5. "Metro" is less a new interface and more every stupid OEM "sell you stuff" drop down gewgaw you have ever uninstalled from your brand new laptop, now rolled in to a full-screen annoyance package.

I like Windows 8, and I still can't imagine it selling as well as Win7. At best, it will be a slow burner that gains momentum as better touch-oriented systems come onto the market to leverage its unique qualities. At worst, it's a Vista-like situation where it sets the stage for a truly enjoyable Windows 9 like Vista/Win7.

I installed Start8, best program for Windows 8, I hate seeing a "touch" app for my desktop.

One other thing, seems my Internet connection with various browsers, Youtube watching, downloading, playing GW2, causes slow down. Still haven't been able to figure out what the bloody problem is never had this problem with Windows 7.

The term "Never upgrade if everything is going fine" for software should be for Windows 8. Unless you are coming from somewhere that is not Windows 7. I wouldn't upgrade, I am strongly debating if I should go back.

3. The much-touted "Metro" interface is an extremely shallow facade, and to actually do anything with the OS, you're back squarely in thousands-of-tiny-icons land with the zero-improvements-whatsoever awful-in-every-way Control Panel that has remained essentially unchanged for over a decade. Ugh.

No you're not, there is quite a lot you can do through the Metro control panel. Not 100%, but a large chunk nonetheless.

Also: The Control Panel has changed in every version of Windows since Windows 2000. Perhaps you remember the wailing and gnashing of teeth when they went from an alphabetical list to a more ordered grouping?

3. The much-touted "Metro" interface is an extremely shallow facade, and to actually do anything with the OS, you're back squarely in thousands-of-tiny-icons land with the zero-improvements-whatsoever awful-in-every-way Control Panel that has remained essentially unchanged for over a decade. Ugh.

5. "Metro" is less a new interface and more every stupid OEM "sell you stuff" drop down gewgaw you have ever uninstalled from your brand new laptop, now rolled in to a full-screen annoyance package.

Extraordinarily underwhelmed, in a phrase.

I hate to be the one to do it, but you couldn't have actually tried to configure and use the new UI.

I have Win8 since Technet made it available. First times were difficult, got lost, then I started getting kind of used to it, but honestly, I can't see it as any better then Win7. Actually, I run two computers side by side, my old one, WinXP, and the new one, dual boot Win7/Win8 and the INTERFACE that I still like the most is WinXP, but for obvious reasons I use Win7 the most, after all, it is the new computer, i7 CPU and stuff.

But, what I disliked most about the metro UI of Win8 is that all apps run fullscreen. With a 30" monitor, that is not a good idea. Even with smaller monitors, I never liked fullscreen. So I am sticking to Win7. I "visit" Win8 every now and then just for the looks of the metro GUI, it is kind of cool to look at it, but 5 minutes later I am rebooting, back to Win7.

It is hard for me to believe people will like Win8. It is just a weird OS. Maybe on a tablet, but now on a PC.

I use Windows 8 on both a non-touchscreen computer (Vaio F2) and a touchscreen computer (Vaio Duo 11).

On the non-touchscreen PC, I think it's two steps forward, one step back. One step forward is boot times, which were cut in half. The other step forward is streaming media playback--the Windows 8 apps for Netflix and ABC Player and the like are *vastly* superior to the web interfaces--smoother performance, higher quality on the same-speed internet connection. Plus, I can rent movies from the Xbox Video store and have an excellent quality video playback. However, the "photos" app is a dramatic step back from Windows Live Photo Gallery, which allowed me to remove red-eye, remove blemishes from people's skin, and other light photo editing. I mainly use the start screen as a substitute for the start menu, which means I look at it for a few seconds every hour. Not a big difference there.

On the Duo 11, Windows 8 is a revelation. Once you integrate touchscreen gestures into your workflow, it feels natural and pleasant. It's a great way to interact. How many sci-fi movies like Minority Report had people using gestures like these to interact instead of being tied to a mouse and keyboard? Plus, I can fold it up and use it as a tablet quite effectively, then unfold it at a moment's notice and have an ultraportable laptop. A lot of machines promise "two devices in one," but here, it delivers. And it couldn't have delivered as well with a less versatile OS. Windows 8 is a jack-of-all-trades-but-master-of-none user interface, which makes perfect sense with a convertible device.

Windows 8 is unfortunate because it does seem to have some improvements on the desktop side... which are negated through the pervasive use of Metro in areas when it shouldn't even be present (such as the default music player, or opening a file without a default program assigned to it). Someone described it as having a schizophrenic UI, and I think this is quiet apt. In my experience and testing it's not significantly better to negate the damn Start Screen and all its fullscreen horror.

I do not relish the idea that this was pushed out the way it was because Microsoft is failing in the mobile sector, and is trying to get consumers used to the new interface so that they can possibly sell some more Windows Mobile devices. I don't like it when a company isn't listening to its users and instead makes decisions that it knows will piss off a lot of its users, but does so anyone because it believes its majority position will be able to withstand the pushback.

I don't like ad-ware. In general, I'll pay for a version of software without ads.

If no such option exists, then I'm disinclined to use ad-ware software at all.

As a desktop user, Windows 8 feels like ad-ware. Every time I want to start a program, I have to go through a little ad about Microsoft's tablet OS so when I do buy a tablet, I'll have seen the interface a few thousand times already.

I'm not happy at having my desktop experience made worse simply to allow Microsoft to promote their tablet OS. Perhaps Windows 8 sales reflect that I'm not the only one to feel that way.

I have no idea what you're describing... I have win8 running on numerous desktops, laptops and tablets and the only time you see ads are...wait for it... in the store... and they're ads for various apps... in the store...